Multi-wavelength laser
AssigneeKing Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
InventorKhurram Karim Qureshi
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Abstract
The multi-wavelength laser is a ring laser source working at room temperature. The laser has an inner cavity disposed in an outer cavity. A pair of circulators disposed in the inner cavity is configured to assure counter-propagation of light between the inner cavity and the outer cavity. A gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (GC-SOA) is formed by combining a SOA and a Fiber Fabry-Perot Tunable Filter (FFP-TF) with the circulator pair. This configuration in the laser cavity results in an improvement in terms of transient gain excursions by applying an optical feedback. This attribute of the GC-SOA enables realizing a stable multi-wavelength laser source.
Claims10
A multi-wavelength laser, comprising:
- a ring multi-wavelength laser having an outer long cavity and an inner short cavity disposed within the outer long cavity;
- a pair of circulators disposed inside the inner short cavity;
- a Fiber Fabry-Perot Tunable Filter (FFP-TF) and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) operably connected to the circulator pair within the inner short cavity, the filter providing a feedback path and forming a gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (GC-SOA) having an optical output directing first optical signals to the outer long cavity and an optical input accepting second optical signals from the outer long cavity;
- a variable optical attenuator (VOA) disposed in the outer long cavity, the variable optical attenuator variably attenuating the first optical signals;
- a polarization controller disposed in the outer long cavity and operably connected to the variable optical attenuator, thereby controlling polarization of the variably attenuated first optical signals;
- an optical coupler disposed in the outer long cavity, the optical coupler having an input and a split output;
- and
- a filter disposed in the outer long cavity and operably connected to the polarization controller, the filter being configured for filtering the variably attenuated, polarization controlled first optical signals, the filter having an output connected to the optical coupler;
- and
- wherein a first portion of the split output from the optical coupler provides a multi-wavelength coherent beam emitted from the multi-wavelength laser, and a second portion of the split output comprises optical signals retained in the cavities.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.